


Slowly Your Hands Grow Numb

by Bellne



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Donna knowing how to deal with Dick's bullshit, Gen, Mentions of Character Death, bat-sitting, bird-sitting?, handling grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 09:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10510971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellne/pseuds/Bellne
Summary: Donna and Garth come back to the Team and are told what happened during the Invasion. Donna finds out Dick has been allowed to deal with things in classical Bat-fashion.She does not approve.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, thanks to tumblr I discovered the marvel that is the Dick and Donna BROTP. It's really a pity Donna doesn't get to appear in any DC cartoon, but technically she does exist in Young Justice universe. 
> 
> This also covers a bit of where the fuck she and Garth were while their teammates/best friends made dumb decisions and shit went down.

After the Invasion, Nightwing drops from the broad heroes network. Batman and Robin and Batgirl bring news, but even to them he seems closed off. He throws himself onto fixing Blüdhaven, which he had been half-assing in favor of running the Team and handling a deep-cover operation. The rest of the Team are handling the Invasion aftermath as best as they can, and they figure Nightwing needs space and will reach out when ready.

This is the sheer level of stupidity Donna finds at the return of her and Garth’s quest to the Underworld, because the half-demon child at their heels is not enough trouble.

So Donna stays until they debrief—their stumbling on Trigon’s daughter, getting her to help them, helping her to contain her father; failing still on bringing back Tula, her sacrifice for their scape, their inability to even find Jason—and are briefed in return—intergalactic messes using their planet as playground, time travelling speedsters, and Wally, oh gods Wally. That out the way, she leaves Garth to deal with Raven and mourn with Kaldur the lost opportunity. She goes to Blüdhaven. 

Dick is doubling as a cop by day and Nightwing by night. He’s running himself ragged and he looks like it, and Hera is he stupid. So she plants herself on his doorstep.

“Donna?” he asks when he opens the door. His lips lift as if to smile, but he mostly just looks disbelieving and sad.

“I bring you real food,” she says, lifting the bag she brought, “because I know that if left alone you’ll eat only garbage.”

“Hey, cereal is a perfectly fine food,” he says, some real brightness back in his eyes, as he moves aside to let her in.

The apartment is a mess, piles of papers, clothes and assorted other buried one under another, which is about right. Donna is certain, though, that Dick is aware of where everything is. 

“Not when they are more sugar than anything else,” she points.

“I need the energy,” he shrugs, closing the door.

“You need protein,” Donna shots back.

Donna finds a semi-empty space to leave the bag with the tupper-ware—home cooking from M’gann—and turns to him. He watches her back, somewhat warily, and she sighs. He thinks she’s here on behalf of the Team. Donna opens her arms, waiting. Dick hesitates for a moment, then he takes two steps and twines his arms around her waist, lets his head fall to her shoulder. Her arms rest over his shoulders.

“I miss him,” he whispers, “so much.”

“I know,” she answers, “I do too.”

“It was my fault,” he declares, and before Donna has time to do more than frown, Dick barrels on. “I was the leader and I fucked up. Again.”

“No you weren’t,” she replies, “I’ve read the mission reports, the whole Justice League was there too. You were all following Lex Luthor’s plans. He and the Flash choose to run.”

Dick lifts his head to stare at her. “But I brought him back into it. He and Artemis both. If I hadn’t—”

“If you hadn’t Kaldur’ahm may be death,” she cut him, moving her hands to his shoulders. “Plus, tell me the Wally West we knew and love—or Artemis for that matter—could have seem what was going on on TV and just stayed at home. Do you really believe he wouldn’t have come to help?”

“No,” he admitted after a beat. “Of course he’d come to help.”

“It was his choice,” she repeats, “You are not responsible for things out of your control or the decisions others make. That’s self-centered of you.”

“I still feel that had I done something different, Wally may still be here,” he sighs, lifting a hand to tangle on his hair. “God, Donna, he was unmade. He disintegrated before our eyes. Didn’t leave behind a body or ash or, or anything. Does he even have a soul left to find?”

“I don’t know,” she answers sincerely. She and Garth had not seen him in their quest, but then again, they hadn’t known to look. 

“Speaking of which,” Dick says eyeing her speculatively, “Tula and—?”

But Donna was already shaking her head sadly. “There was way more trouble than we expected, and in the end Tula sacrificed herself again so that Garth and I may come back to the land of the living.”

Dick’s jaw tightens, gulps, stares at her like a drowning man at sea. “And Jason?”

“I’m sorry Dick,” she says and his expression crumbles in sadness, “we couldn’t find him anywhere.”

“Ok. Ok…” he says absentmindedly. 

Donna sighs again and lets her hands fall from his shoulders. He takes his hands and tugs in the direction of the couch, instead, dragging Dick back out of his head.

“C’mon, you are taking the night off.”

“Wha—No. I can’t—”his protest was almost immediate. A knee-jerk reaction. 

Donna talked over him. “You can and you will. We are going to eat the nutritious meal M’gann prepared, because she knows you, maybe watch a movie and then you are getting real sleep. Really, Dick, you look like you’re about to kneel over.”

And that’s what they do.


End file.
